Portable digital recording equipment?

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smalltowner

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Hello.! I am a returning newbie, (I got side tracked about 1 1/2 years ago when I first found this web site -raising my now 2 1/2 year old son!)

ANYWAY- I now travel A LOT for full time work. Is there anything you all could recommend as far as a protable stand-alone digital recording solution? I need more for recording musical ideas. My dream equipment would be:
-EZ to work-portable
-fairly small in size
-immediate playback ability
-capability to download to a PC at a later time for better mixing, Etc.
-It really only needs two tracks-one for vocal and the other for guitar, but I would not mind more tracks.
-Cost? Lets say cost is no problem, (but in reality something under $500 , and even better under $200!)

Thanks in advance! I really appreciate your help!
A happy-to-be-returning-newbie,
Mike
 
follow up by me

Hi I wanted to add a couple of things to my original post.

-this may be obvious, but if there is another forum or website that reviews equipment that I spoke of in my previous post please feel free to share!

-What about a laptop for my protable recording station? (Or would that be SO expensive?)

-A real newbie question-if I were to use one of those portable stand alone products-does it save the files as a .wav or .mp3 file?

Thanks again! Mike
 
I don't know nutz as I'm just a newbie as well, but I think you should get yourself an MD player. Unconventional advice at its best... :)
 
After much reading...

OK, I have spent most of the day on this the equipment forums and researching the INterent. If anyone has a heart please reply to my modified new questions.

I have narrowed my choices to:

Fostex MR-8, BOSS BR-532, Korg PXR4 and the Tascam Pocket studio 5...(And maybe the Zoom mrs-04)

Here are my revised needs:

-Still want to record guitar and vocals
-EZ pleez
-portability (I stay in hotels alot)
-I would like something that can take what I record and be able to dump it onto a PC and convert to .wav or mp3 file? I am still confused as to what type of file is produced by these products and how to get it eventually burned to a CD.
-quality can be OK, I need this for Demos and ides.

-Will I need anything else?

I mean once I buy this thing can I plug a Mic and a guitar cord into it and record?
I have a feeling the answer is no, (like I will need somthing to power up the Mic and/or guitar like a pre-amp?)

If any of you all knowing wise masters of sound can advise I would really appreciate it!

Thanks!
 
Well, those small units might be one way to go. I have some other questions. Is there any other gear that you have ro have on the road? For example if you have to have a laptop for work anyhow then some sort of outboard USB device might be good. It still seems that no matter how small of a unit you get you will sill have a lot of bulk in microphones, cables, stands, etc. and it will still sound like you are recording in a hotel room. If if is just for a musical notepad for ideas and rough demos that you will later might track under better conditions why not just go for a personal minidisc recorder? Very small, very portable, stereo recording, immediate playback, and good for just listening to tunes too.
 
Mini disc

Thanks innovations! You know I have been looking more and more at those. Yesterday morning I knew nothing about mini discs, (and to be honest thought it was an outgoing technology from the early 90's).

But, the more I think about it the more I think you may be right. The cost of mini discs versus smart media cards-well that is a big advantage. My #1 priority here is after working with people all day-I want to come back to the hotel room and have a quick and EZ way to capture my musical thoughts-definitely a scratch pad...

The one thing I wsa wondering. LEts say I record something on the mini disc that I find so good and so cool that I want THAT exact track dowloaded onto my computer for later use. Reading some of the forums scares me. I am confused as to whether it is EZ to downlaod the mini disc recordings to a PC and then turn them into .Wav or mp3 files.

Lastly, (and maybe I should post this in the mini disc section?)
But any suggestions on a brand or model of a portable mini disc player? I have no idea what a decent one costs.


Thanks again!
 
The question about the laptop was a good one. Do you have a laptop with you on the road?

That changes things substantially...

...or, if not, how much is "SO expensive?" What's your budget?
 
Yes to laptop

Sorry Innovations and Turnip-yest I have a laptop with me at all times. It is an IBM pentium 4 with I think 30-something Gig hard drive. It runs Windows XP...
 
The boss unit has decent modeling, but small storage. If you get an editing software program (Acid, n-tracks, CEP or ?) then it would work great. Its a small unit and actually can produce a decent demo with the software mentioned above.
Get something with a drum program as it will be easier to make the ideas flow.
 
I am also looking for a direct digital recorder to record practice tracks, catalog them in my computer, and download them to CD in the sequence I need to use them. I bought a Sony MD and thought I was golden. However, no mic. I used the Radio Shack mics I had been using on my Walkman D6 (analog cassette), and the sound was way low--unusable. If I went through the D6, though, using the "line out", I got a workable recording. The show-stopper was that the anti-piracy software prevented me from uploading my own stuff to my computer! So an MD may be fine as long as you want to keep your original recordings on a set of MDs. Didn't work for me.

So I've been looking at digital recorders, too, and will probably go that way at some point. I hear that the Boss BR 532 is going to be replaced with a BR 864 next month. (About 60 times as big as a MD unit, which is pocket sized.) When that is in the store for me to look at, I'll look seriously. I can only make one step at a time, and will favor a unit that takes the mini-jack plugs I use on the Walkman, so I don't have to get new mics, too. However, I fear that, without a preamp, I may have the same sound-level problem that I had initially with Sony MD.
 
MD solutions

Only- i did a lot of research on this. I ended buying a used sony MD on Ebay a few nights back, and it should arrive soon.
there are ways to improve recording quality when using microphones (I believe one thing that effects recording quality is whether your MD has a "Mic in" jack or just a "line in" jack.)
Also, I believe you can "upload" your stuff to PC, but only at real time and only as analog?

I am really looking for the quickest way to record my ideas at the spru of the moment without set up and not go broke on memory cards. So I think an MD is cool for what I want. since i bought used , i can always go shopping for a portable DAW in the near future if this doesn't work out.

If you want solutions to your MD recording problems, a great place to search are either the Minidisc forums on these boards or at http://www.minidisc.org

good luck to you (and to me!)
 
The minidisc will make a fine vocal notepad. You can upload them to a computer, but the manufacturers have been anal about allowing direct digital output so there will be a digital to analog back to digital conversion. Also minidiscs use a compression algorithm but the more recent models have very little loss.

For the mics check if your recorder has 'plug-in power' (like phantom power). If so you can use one of many small electret single point stereo mics out there.

If this whole setup does not match your needs for quality there is another route you can go. Get a M-Audio Mobile-Pre, (or something similar), two durable mics, and you can record digital to your USB port on the laptop.
 
Am I missing something here? WHy would you get a minidisk that you cant multitrack on over the Boss or even getting the MBox USB pre that gives you protools LE too? If you have a decent laptop that is by far the best solution.
 
Portable pre-amp

Hi again. You mentioned the M-audio preamp hooked to a laptop. I may be showing my newbie-ness, but is an "Audio Buddy" the same thing? (I can get a hand-me down one for free).
The last piece would be recording software, correct? Could I just download the free version of N-tracks and go from there?

If the above would work, any suggestions on low cost microphones for this set-up?

thanks again!
 
M-Box

I have a P4 Laptop that I use for normal everyday stuff that I easily converted into a powerful home recording studio by simply buying the M-Box http://digidesign.com/
You could try to get it for under $400 if you look around online.

It comes bundled with Pro Tools LE recording software. The software is pretty easy to get started with.

You can record a whole demo on your laptop if you wanted to.

Look into it.
 
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